The Sunday Hangman

them dry, for fear of doing the butterfingers when the moment came to draw. A dry branch cracked under his testing tug.

He froze.

There wasn’t another sound.

Swanepoel stopped laughing. He pinned Willie hard against the wall. He turned him round and took hold of his wrists.

“So you see, I want them to catch me,” he whispered in Willie’s ear. “I’ve always wanted that, ever since Roberts. He was the only one I hid, because I wasn’t ready then. I didn’t have an impressive enough number. But they were such fools! Such fools! I left the cap as a clue last time; did they find it?”

Blubbering, Willie managed to say, “They’ll-they’ll hang you, too!”

“Of course, Boshoff. How else will I ever know the truth? Ever know what happened to my man-child? They won’t tell me themselves and the books all contradict. The Englishman I respect; he may even, as Karl says, have taught our hangman his skills. But when? How long ago? He has retired-has our man retired also? What of these stories of the white pickax handle? Of the short drops? The drops too long? When that trap opens, just before I die, I will know. Nobody will stop me.”

He brought Willie away from the wall.

“But-oh, Jesus save me! — it-it won’t work with me, Mr. Swanepoel! I did nothing capital! You won’t be able to claim that in court. Make fools of them! Please stop this! Please let me go! I’ll give you anything! I’ve never even been with a woman!”

“It’s best not to, Willie. Hold still while I undo your feet; only beasts should be dragged to their death. You must stop struggling now and show dignity. Walk tall like my boy did; make me proud of you.”

Panting, pouring with a stink of sweat as sweet as rotting flesh, Zondi staggered as far as the truck and could go no farther. The walkie-talkie, which had proved useless because of the high ridge between him and Luthuli’s party, was still clutched in his hand. He tossed it down.

There was no sign of the Lieutenant up at the pillbox.

Zondi looked into the cab of the truck. The open door and the keys in the ignition switch indicated that Swanepoel had abandoned it in a hurry. Perhaps all that theorizing had been too fanciful, too reverent about executions in the way that white people often were, trying to turn killing into pulling teeth. Perhaps it was all over, and there was blood in Boss Boshoff’s mouth.

There was a scrambling noise.

The noose was around Willie’s neck. It was being tightened and the rubber ring drawn down into place. The floor beneath his stockinged feet felt absolutely solid; he couldn’t detect the crack. Just bumpy lines.

“You’re right,” Swanepoel agreed. “It has driven me a little mad. The doubt, I suppose. Still, each time I see it work perfectly, I know it must have been quick for him, providing it was done properly.”

“You don’t need me, too,” Willie whispered, not being able to speak any louder, having curled away in a far corner of his mind. “You don’t need another. You’ve proved it five times.”

“Any scientific experiment requires many repetitions for the result to be of any significance, Willie. I could have performed five flukes. Shall I tell you why you’re different from the others? And more like my son?”

Willie nodded. Another second-anything!

“They gave me no trouble because their guilt would make them yield to what must inevitably happen. But, like Anthony Michael, you do not feel guilt. That is why I want to see if you can still take this like a man. I am going to say goodbye now, then I am going to walk-”

“A prayer! I can’t die without a prayer!”

Swanepoel sighed. “Our Father,” he said.

Kramer looked over the top of the pillbox and saw the top branches of a thorn tree growing inside it. Below that, silvered by the moon, weed. Broken beams, brought down by termites, lying where they had fallen. “Ach, no!” he gasped.

Then began climbing down, ripping his clothes and his skin in his haste, feeling nothing. Ten feet from the ground, he jumped and rolled, cracking his head on an anthill. Dazed, he staggered up, stumbled, ran.

Round in a circle, not knowing which direction to take. He stopped. Looked all around and saw nothing but the truck.

Despair dashed aside reason. “It’s in the truck!” Kramer shouted. “In the sodding truck! Must be!”

He started to run again.

The truck was too low.

He jogged.

Too low and bulletproof.

Gravity was bulletproof, too; once the falling body began to fall, there would be no stopping it.

He paused and took aim. Aimlessly.

This pause seemed providential, because he suddenly noticed, for the very first time, a small thicket of plane trees on the far side of the truck. Tall, densely packed plane trees which could be hiding anything in their midst.

“Amen,” said Gysbert Swanepoel, touching Willie again on the shoulder. “I have five steps to take, my son, that is all.”

The air in that stifling cloth bag was foul.

And for a man breathing his last, this became the greatest injustice of all.

Tears ran down Willie’s bruised cheeks.

One. Two.

“Go well, Willie.”

He shook. The whole world shook.

The floor jerked violently beneath him.

21

Zondi knew only one way of defying gravity to do its worst, and that was by changing its direction. Not in relation to the center of the earth, of course, but within the design of death which man had placed upon it.

Whether his move would come in time-or a split second too late-he had no idea. Nevertheless, it seemed worth trying.

So he half stood on the throttle of the truck, his right leg locked at the knee, and aimed the left front at a bank. The truck leaped toward it.

By swerving to the right as he left the track, he’d throw the truck fractionally off balance. Its list would increase, however, once the left front tire struck the bank and, if the angle was correct, the truck would become momentarily airborne. After that, it would crash down on its side.

Or, as the Lieutenant would say, such was the theory.

When Kramer saw the truck suddenly start up and roar off, he cursed himself for an idiot: Swanepoel had never left the vehicle, but had hidden in the back with Willie.

Kramer knelt on one knee, braced his gun hand in the crook of his left elbow, and fired five shots.

Then whooped when the truck swerved, struck a low bank, heeled over, and banged down on its side, bursting the big back doors open.

There was a bright orange light shining inside it.

Kramer approached the truck with great curiosity. He found Gysbert Swanepoel lying on the ground pinned